With AYLUS Pearland's rapid expansion—now boasting over 400 members and more than 9,000 volunteer hours annually—the need for an efficient event and participation tracking system became critical. To address this, in the summer of 2023, Matthew Niu and Jonathan Niu led a team of dedicated volunteers, supported by a professional database administrator parent and guided by AYLUS Pearland alumni Aaron Wu (Public Relations Officer 2020-22), to build a customized database from the ground up. This ambitious project took several months and involved designing, coding, data entry, and rigorous testing to create an efficient and reliable system.
The result, an Oracle-based system named InnovaFlow, has dramatically improved AYLUS Pearland’s ability to manage volunteer hours and events. Beyond simple data tracking, InnovaFlow offers real-time statistics for both the organization and individual members. The system is intuitive, updating automatically with every new entry and providing volunteers with instant access to personalized summaries of their service history. Equipped with strong authentication and authorization protocols, InnovaFlow ensures data security while simplifying the PVSA (President's Volunteer Service Award) application process, increasing efficiency by over 80% compared to the previous Excel-based system.
InnovaFlow has since been adopted by several other organizations for volunteer event tracking, underscoring its versatility and effectiveness. The development team has grown into a multi-tiered structure, with senior members leading and mentoring junior volunteers. New members begin with data entry tasks before advancing to database maintenance and improvement roles. The project has not only enhanced operational efficiency but also offered volunteers invaluable hands-on experience in IT and database management. As a testament to the project’s impact, several team leaders have secured internships with external organizations, showcasing their leadership and technical skills.
InnovaFlow is more than a tool—it's a platform that has empowered volunteers to develop technical expertise while supporting AYLUS Pearland’s mission.
Database Flow Chart
Aaron is discussing database design with Jonathan and Matthew
Matthew and Jonathan working on the database construction